hehe could i request some kokichi content? maybe like angst or hurt/comfort? thank you sm :D -🐇
featuring. kokichi ouma
genre. angst
content. major drv3 spoilers, allusions to death, grieving, crying, general sadness and pain and agony, gender neutral reader.
summary. in the wake of the final trial, you await for your partner to make his return to you.
Your hands clutch at the fabric, twist it between your fingers. It is dotted with blood and the awful truth that you refuse to let yourself acknowledge.
You stare out over the ruined courtyard as daylight breaks over the horizon quietly, soaking your grief in honeyed light. The cuts and bruises left along your body seem to sing, strangely - the pain seems separate from you, your skin not your own. There is only one thing you're focused on. Only one thing you want to see.
One person.
"Y/n," comes Maki's voice, quiet, placating. More patient than you have ever heard her. "He's... not coming."
You shake your head jerkily; your fingers twist so tightly in the fabric that they begin to hurt, cutting off the blood circulation where it knots over your skin. "No. No. He's... he said..."
Himiko tucks her head into the crook of your elbow, ducking beneath your arm like a cat. "Y/n... 's okay," she mumbles. You wonder if she is thinking of the people she lost, of Angie and Tenko. But this isn't like that. Because he's not dead.
He'd said...
He'd told you...
"Please," you mutter to yourself. You look down at the chequered scarf clutched between your hands. It stares back up at you plaintively, mocking. All you have left of him, for now. Until he comes running out of that dilapidated building, like you know he will. Like he'd promised in that hangar. Why else would you have let him go through with that ridiculous plan?
"You're not... actually planning to die, right?" you asked, knees tucked to your chest. You stare at the hydraulic press, that ugly, bleak hulk of metal. It stares dully back at you, silent as a tomb.
"Who, me?" Kokichi cackled, springing to his feet and stretching. His back was to you; you disliked that you couldn't see into his eyes, even if only for a second. "As if. I've still gotta end this dumbass killing game, right? Can't do that if I'm dead!"
"Kokichi," you said quietly. "Truth or lies?"
He stilled. For a horrible moment, your stomach sank. And then he turned to you, casting a blithe smile over his shoulder. "Truth! And that's not a lie. I've never not told the truth to you, right?"
Tears roll absently down your face as you scan the horizon desperately. The Ultimate Academy lies before you in ruins, chunks of stone and pipes spilling water and crushed glass. But nothing breathes. Nothing moves. Nothing comes running to you, no broad grin, no small pale hand in yours.
There is only you, and your fellow survivors, and that awful inevitable truth growing bigger with every passing second.
"Y/n..." Shuichi says softly. "We have to leave. Please."
"I can't - leave him," you say, your voice stilted with the effort not to cry. "I promised - I'd wait - he said—"
"I know," Shuichi whispers, and there are tears glimmering in his eyes, too. Does he weep for Kokichi? Not likely - his sadness is for you, you think. It's empathy, for the partner you have lost. But you can't bring yourself to think that, because if Shuichi is grieving on your behalf that means that you should be grieving, too, and that means that Kokichi is gone.
He can't be. But he isn't here.
Your knees give out; you sprawl onto the broken asphalt, burying your head into his scarf to hide your tears as you sob. There is a rush of movement, and you are somewhat distantly aware of Maki's hand upon your shoulder, shaking for the lover she has lost, and Shuichi's arms around your middle, trembling with the strength of holding on, and Himiko's sniffling in your ear as she weeps for her dead friends.
Their touch is comforting, but it is not the one you seek, the one you need. That one died - and no matter how many lies he had spun you in that hangar, it wasn't coming back.
